Committee of the Peoples Charter (CPC) is a non-partisan political, economic, social and democratic accountability movement founded in 2011 in pursuit of the realization of the societal objectives enunciated by the Zimbabwe People’s Charter adopted at the Peoples Convention on 9 February 2008 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Monday, 20 July 2015

CPC On the Structural Challenges of Zimbabwe’s National Economy: Position Paper Number 4.

Think. Act. Lead

Issue Date: Friday 17 July 2015

1. The Zimbabwean national
economy, in it structural framework (the state, private sector, social
services and informal sector) has come to be both a political and ideological
issue. We immediately raise the structural dimension of debating our national
economy because goods, services, and wealth are created within established
frameworks by dint of either global best examples or historically arrived
at values and principles. In both cases these two aspects have also
historically been ideological (liberalism, neo-liberalism, socialism,
communism, state-capitalism, nationalism).

2. Historically our country’s
economy has also been one that is largely characterized by a combination of
mimicry of these same said economic models and ideas. On occasion with the best
of intentions but in most cases out of sheer necessity but lack of thorough
application to our national context.

3. Zimbabwe has now come full
circle since our national independence, from being an economy that was
initially supported by the remnants of a settler state capitalism while
embarking on a socialist ideological economic intention to one that was to
become liberal (free-market) in the 1990s decade of structural adjustment. This
latter phase, while making pretensions at retaining the key role of the state in facilitating social welfare services (education, health, public transport
subsidies) gave way to a stricter free market framework in which the state has
all but withdrawn its role of ensuring that the basic needs of all citizens are
met. This is the neo-liberal version of our national economic policy that
Zimbabwe is now experiencing.

4. This is also despite the
radical nationalism that informed what is now referred to as the Fast Track
Land Reform Programme (FTLRP). While the latter was intended to be a
means of redress for historical colonial injustice addressing, its occurrence
has however been within the broader ambit of again, limited state support for
new farmers and nascent manufacturers of agricultural end products.

4.1 Further expressions of radical
nationalism within a neo-liberal economic context were to be found in the
national indigenization policy that followed the FTLRP. The targeting of
foreign majority owned private corporations to cede at least 51% of their
shares, while being a convenient carry over from the land reform programme was
however not intended to be a wealth redistribution programme for all. It
has instead created a limited number of elites who with the passage of time and
limited numbers of viable companies to indigenize also sought to acquire 51%
ownership of banks, a tertiary service sector.

4.2 To this end, the neo-liberal
framework that now informs our national economy has come to be exemplified by
the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Social and Economic Transformation (ZIMASSET).
Its primary pretext of utilizing central government mortgaging state assets to
public private partnerships across its clusters identified as food security;
value addition; social services and poverty reduction; infrastructure and
utilities and finally value addition and beneficiation. All in order
to arrive at an economy where the social democratic obligations of the state to
provide basic needs for all of its citizens are diminished.

4.3 This is why, for all the
praise singing, ZimAsset is being implemented within the context of high levels
of unemployment, lack of affordable healthcare, poor public transport services,
ongoing endemic levels of corruption, lack of affordable housing and lack of
affordable basic education.

5. It is this lived economic
reality that while being imbued with abstract statements of good intention from
the government, remains neo-liberal and elite centered.

5.1 In light of this structural
framework, it is therefore imperative that there be greater analysis of the
depressing realities that are our lived national economic realities. This
would entail understanding our economy to be characterized by the following:

a) A
continued application of various economic models and blueprints without a
thorough appreciation and consideration of our national context in order to
arrive at people-centered economic solutions

b) The
use of radical nationalist rhetoric to paper over an elitist and predatory
state capitalism under the guise of public private partnerships

c) The
individualization of the Zimbabwean citizen by way of personal debt and
repressive political laws that serve to make it near impossible for different
alternatives and frameworks to be placed in the public domain

d)The dis-empowerment of the youth and women of Zimbabwe through unemployment,
lack of access to affordable basic and tertiary education, lack of access to
affordable healthcare, public transport and land.

e) The
negation of the elderly and pensioners to the vagaries of the unaffordable cost
of living.

5.2 In order to mitigate these undemocratic
economic circumstances, it is imperative that all Zimbabweans consider the
following:

a) Challenging
the ideological framework of government’s economic policies in order to effect
a shift from the current neo-liberal one to a social democratic grounding that recognizes that the role of the state remains that of ensuring basic needs for
all citizens. This being done while simultaneously promoting innovation,
protecting our local markets and democratically contextualizing every proposed new
economic blueprint suggested by global trends.

b) Prioritizing the economic plight of the youth and elderly by crafting alternative social
democratic economic policy frameworks that outline organic solutions in the
immediate as well as the long term.

c) Making
gender an integral aspect of any alternative economic frameworks

d) Harnessing
the input of the Zimbabwean Diaspora in crafting social democratic economic
frameworks.

e) Lobbying
the government of the day on these frameworks and remaining true to principle.

Issued by the Subcommittee on the
National Economy and Social Welfare.